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5 Ways to Make Extra Money From Your Home… Literally

If you own a house and need a bit of extra cash there are several options that you could consider to make money. Here are 5 ways to make extra money from your home… literally!

Rent Your Parking Spot – If you live in a dense urban area you can rent out your parking spot. When I lived in Hawaii parking was at such a premium that people could fetch several hundred dollars for their parking stall, especially towards the downtown area. There are several sites which offer parking spot arrangements which include parkingspots.com and parkatmyhouse.com.

Swap Your House – This isn’t necessarily making money from your home, but you can save money on your next vacation by eliminating the costs associated with hotels or staying in a different state or even country. You may have watched the movie the movie, The Holiday, which was a great, yet romantic, version of a housing swap in action. Although it may seem weird to have strangers in your house, by using Skype to communicate, getting references first, and making sure any valuables and important paperwork are locked up, you should be good to go.

Get a Roommate – Ah roommates, they’re not glamorous, but they do provide you with some extra rent money if times get tight (that is, if they pay their bills). I’ve used roommates as a living arrangement the majority of my adult life and find that it’s a great way to significantly lower my living expenses. I even have a few single dad friends who live together so that they can better handle raising their kids because of their schedules. Roommates could also entail living in a communal arrangement, but you might have to move homes in order to accomplish that.

Power up Your House – Use your roof and power grid as a way to shoot power back to the grid. Although solar is still an expensive alternative, it is possible for those who are handy to build their own solar panels and place them on their roof. You can even used damaged solar cells from ebay and save a ton of money. If you’ve got the time you could tinker around and build your own by following some simple instructions on the internet.

Convert Your Backyard to an Edible Paradise – If you’ve got a lawn in your backyard, you’re not using your land for the highest and best use. There’s a family in Pasadena California that uses their yard on a quarter of an acre lot to raise all their own food and also sell some for the extra produce for tens of thousands of dollars each year. Local restaurants in the upscale market are demanding fresh organic produce which this family offers. Sure they may work a bit harder than all of us, but they do it in a beautiful environment that allows them to stay at home. Check out the video below to see how they do it.

If you need some extra cash and have a house with some extra space that isn’t being utilized there are many options for you. Learn about this and other legitimate work from home jobs by browsing our site. Your creativity and willingness to work to save some money will be the factors in which you can make money from your home, literally!

Crystal’s Comments: We actually rented out the spare bedroom in our home for more than two years. It does feel pretty great to be making $500 back from your home every month when you only have a $740 mortgage. 🙂 The only downside is the amount of privacy you have to be willing to give up.

Have you ever followed through on any of the ideas above? Any great ideas that we’re missing?

22 Comments

LifeAndMyFinances on at

Great ideas Ryan! I can’t wait to get into a house of my own and try some of these money-making ideas! I don’t think I would mind a room mate either, as long as they kept to themselves.

Molly On Money on at

For the last year we’ve been working with ideas to make income from our land and home. We are big do it yourselfers (which helps). We garden and it always seems like it will pay off but we seem to spend more money on infrastructure, irrigation and seeds than what it would take to just go buy veggies at the store! This year we’ve created a excel spreadsheet to track our plantings to see where we could do better. Oh, were raising a pig this year too- I think it may be cheaper just to become a vegetarian 🙂

We’re actually renting out a room in our basement right now, and have for the last 18 months. Privacy isn’t much of a concern. My tenant has been my best friend for 16 years.

Crystal @ BFS on at

@Life, all of our roommates kept to themselves…

@Molly, good luck with the pig! My friends and I are actually thinking of buying a cow and splitting the meat.

@Jason, nice!!!

First Gen American on at

Yeah, I’ve rented out rooms in our house before and it worked great. Young couples especially have more house than they need so it’s nice having a roomie or two before kids come on the scene. These days we use every square inch of our house, but when we moved in and there was just two of us, it seemed huge.

Amanda on at

We live in a small town with a Big 10 football program and a lack of hotel space, so I know people who rent out their homes on home football weekends for A LOT of money.

Jenna on at

I have a roommate and we are planning on putting in a small patio garden soon. I would add keep energy costs low, lower the heat and keep the lights off during the day. No cable and limit your driving.

Squirrelers on at

I’d be cool with renting a parking spot if I lived in a high-demand area for that sort of thing. Here in the Chicago area, there are massive amounts of train commuters on all the lines that head into downtown from across this region. Many of these train stations are in old, built-out, very established communities with old-fashioned downtowns. Needless to say, there’s very little parking. An entrepreneurial resident might be able to snag some extra cash by selling space, as long as it’s ok with municpal codes to do so.

Renting a room? Maybe when younger, sure – but at my stage in life, not a chance:)

Crystal @ BFS on at

@First Gen, that’s why we decided to rent the spare bedroom – we weren’t even using it for storage at the time…not so much anymore…

@Amanda, that sounds great!!! Tons of money and you don’t even have to deal with them on weekdays…

Crystal @ BFS on at

@Jenna, good tips.

@Squirrelers, I think it’s hilarious when people in their thirties start talking about their younger years. 😉 Of course, you have kids, so I probably wouldn’t rent out a spare room either unless it was to trusted friends or family (like Jason’s friend).

I get the “younger years” thing. When I was 20, any roommate was a decent roommate, if they paid. Worst case scenario, they steal all of my stuff and I’m out $50. Now, I’ve got a bit more at stake. 🙂

DoNotWait on at

None of this going on now and some can’t really apply to our home. But thank you for the list, some great ideas!

krantcents on at

My daughter rents her (San Francisco)parking space out for $200 per month. I rented my home out after moving to my new home for over a year.

Sunil from The Extra Money Blog on at

a neighbor of ours is a couple who owns a 5k+ square foot home. it’s only the two of them, and have put a full 1k of the 5k into use as a gigantic storage facility for their wealthy friends, who pay them to store their expensive furniture, paintings, sculptures etc. it’s almost like a high end air conditioned, humidity proof storage facility. how is that for a business idea? does someone want to take it and run with it? there are enough rick folks who spend top dollars on top things that they care a lot about

Debbie M on at

I know someone who lets an apartment-dwelling friend garden in her yard in return for some of the produce.

You could rent storage space or freezer space.

I knew some college students who borrowed the lawn mower of an elderly neighbor and in return they mowed her lawn also.

You could use your house to save money by finding ways to do things at home that you might otherwise pay to do outside your home such as go to a gym, watch movies, go to restaurants, put stuff in storage, or run a business.

Crystal @ BFS on at

@Jason, so true.

@DoNotWait, I’m glad you liked the guest post! Thanks Ryan!

@krantcents, smart daughter!!!

@Sunil, that is just too cool. I wish our house was big enough but we’ve pretty much filled up our 1750 square feet…

@Debbie, thanks for all of the great ideas! I like the idea of renting out space in our chest freezer…

Little House on at

These are all great ideas. A few years ago my husband and I thought about renting out one of our spare bedrooms as storage, instead of having a room mate. We ended up not doing it, but it was an option we discussed. As long as you can guarantee that there’s nothing odd in a person’s storage (like body parts!) and you have insurance, you should be able to rent a room or section of your house out temporarily.

Crystal @ BFS on at

@Little House, yeah, and renting out storage space wouldn’t have any of the privacy drawbacks like roommates do. 🙂

brian minter on at

I just came across your site and you have some good stuff I will bookmark you to return later.

Fisher on at

Hey, cool post! Thanks…

Anuj on at

All doable opportunities but first you have to commit yourself to doing ‘something’ and then you have to ‘do it’. Not always an easy thing for most people.

If you have a natural entrepreneurial spirit, a skill, you’re a self-starter and you have the will to be successful, you’ll be on your way 😉